Left I on the News

Since he started talking publicly in mid-May, Luis Posada Carriles has told a rather fanciful tale of how he came to be in Miami:

"Posada said he crossed the Texas border in a vehicle with a migrant smuggler at Brownsville. He and the smuggler made their way to Houston, he said.
...
"The trip was uneventful until the bus pulled into Fort Lauderdale early one morning in late March, he said.

"'Now comes the funny part,'' Posada recalled. It was 1:30 a.m. and only about a dozen people remained on the bus. Suddenly, immigration officers boarded the Greyhound for a routine spot check for undocumented foreign nationals, recalled Posada -- who had no papers.

"'An agent said to me, 'Sir, your documents,'' he said. 'I said, 'I left them at my house.' He said, 'How can they be at your house? Don't you know that by law you have to have them on you at all times'' I said 'Sir, I'm 80 years old, I forget things. Right now, I don't even remember where I'm going.''"

How perfectly quaint. And how perfectly improbable. Even back then, there was a different account of his entry:

"[Fidel] Castro has repeatedly claimed that Miami developer Santiago Alvarez, a friend and benefactor to Posada, brought him to Miami aboard his remodeled shrimp boat, Santrina, which is now anchored in the Miami River."

But it wasn't "Castro" who was the source of that claim (although he did repeat it), it was Renan Castro, the news editor of the daily Por Esto (from the Mexican states of Yucatan and Quintana Roo). And now the latter Castro (no relation to the former) has spoken at an anti-terrorism conference being held in Havana and revealed additional details of the story, which explains why Posada was doing more than simply covering up the involvement of a friend when he wove his tale:

Posada entered the U.S. via drug traffickers' maritime route
"The notorious murderer was protected in Guatemala, Belize and Mexico by drug traffickers from the Central American cartel led by the capo Otto Herrera Garcia. The latter is linked to criminal associations in Mexico led by Ismael Elmayo Cambala and Joaqun el Capo Guzman, who in turn are linked to the Cuban-American mafia based in Cancun. They were the ones who provided all the logistics for Posada Carriles so that he could remain for more than one week in Mexican territory, the journalist affirmed.

"Posada Carriles was supported by Juan Carlos "El Profe" Puyerol, a notorious trafficker of Cubans who arrive in Mexico illegally, the journalist explained. For more than seven years, Puyerol has led a powerful ring linked to a group of Cuban-born drug traffickers known as the Marielitos, who maintain close relations with the CANF based in Miami, Florida.

"The CANF has maintained ties with Colombian drug traffickers in order to finance subversive actions against Cuba's revolutionary government since the 1980s. Something similar is brewing in the Mexican state of Quintana Roo, all under the protection of the Mexican authorities.

"Posada's version of going over land was to cover up for his buddies, Jose Pujols, captain of the Santrina, and Santiago Alvarez, who helped him get into the U.S."

And, incidentally, Santiago Alvarez may indeed be a "Miami developer", as the Miami Herald describes him, but, according to the usually reliable Fidel Castro, he's a lot more than that; he is, no surprise here, a terrorist as well:

"The Cuban president affirmed that boat had a list of bandits including Santiago Alvarez, proven to have participated in sending mercenaries to Cuba to plant bombs in tourist facilities, like the planned attack on the Tropicana nightclub in Havana."

Gloria La Riva, mentioned here two days ago in conjunction with the upcoming June 13 demonstrations against Posada, also spoke at the conference, and added some new details about June 13:

"Demonstrators will carry the same photos of victims of terrorist attacks that the Cuban people held aloft during the historic march in Havana on May 17.

"'We will demand that they declassify and make public all of the documents related to the issue, as well as the release of the five Cuban heroes being held as political prisoners in the U.S., in the name of all of the martyrs of terrorism and their relatives,' she affirmed.

"She added that in Los Angeles that same day, the son of former Chilean Foreign Minister Orlando Letelier is to bring a lawsuit against Posada Carriles."

(New FBI and CIA documents show that Posada was in a meeting which planned the bombing which killed Letelier and Ronni Moffitt)